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1000 + in our ward with c. 150 attending. Our attendance is around 40%. Ours is about 35%, and that seems about average for the other units in the stake, some closer to 30% and some closer to 40% (but none at 30% or 40%). Many non-attenders in our ward haven’t ever darkened the door since I moved here in the late 80s, I only know their names because they’ve been on the records and various leaders have made efforts to reach out (usually unsuccessfully) over the years. Most probably don’t actually consider themselves Mormon. To Gerald’s point, the shocker for me back int he day was how few full tithe payers there are. That figure in my ward is around 15%.
Yes, I agree you could make the construct of “activity” very complicated if you want. As someone who just spent the last two years on a dissertation topic where everyone is debating the terminology, its meaning, and its factor structure, I reached conclusions. I reached the conclusion that it’s best to agree upon a simple definition you can live with, and that is relatively easy to measure, without sacrificing reasonable accuracy and consensus in meaning. But it doesn’t have to be perfect to reach conclusions that help practitioners. I would argue that most denominations have some kind of a meeting where someone preaches at them. All the denominations I have attended have had such a meeting. Ours happens to be called Sacrament meeting. The percent of the membership that attends that meeting may well be a simple and effective means of comparing apples to apples across denominations.
What I am seeing here, from our small sample size reported by others, are activity rates ranging from 15% to 60% based on the Sacrament attendance/Total Membership definition. If you accept the percentages reported here as the lower and upper end of the range, the midpoint would be about 37.5% or so, assuming the distribution is symmetrical. I keep hearing figures of about 30% overall, so this seems ball parkish. I also suspect that when you get out of the Mormon belt activity rates fall. There isn’t the same peer pressure in these areas.
I disagree with using current TR holders as a measure of activity though. First, it makes it hard to compare to other denominations, and second, I consider myself actively involved in the Ward even though I don’t hold a TR. So, to call me less active is kind of disheartening.
SilentDawning wrote:Yes, I agree you could make the construct of “activity” very complicated if you want.
To an extent, it needs to be, especially given the Church’s constraints on activity. Let’s construct a simple thought experiment with a ward reduced to two members, (ignore the lack of leadership for the moment) who are both police officers, and in fact, the town’s only police officers.
They both can’t take Sunday morning off, so they trade off. Now the ward has 50% attendance, but 100% activity.
The city gets tired of them swapping schedules. Fortunately, despite the low population, there’s a ward that meets in the afternoon as well, so one takes the morning shift and attends that one instead. Now the ward has 50% attendance and 50% activity, and the morning shift officer becomes completely inactive according to the Church, but stays on the member count.
We see the same with people who travel a lot for work; they may be attending a Sacrament Meeting every week, but as far as the Church is concerned, they’re inactive because they’re not attending the one they’ve been assigned to. This also happens with singles assigned to a family ward who get tired of feeling like an outcast and travel to a singles ward to be with others like them. (Also single custodial parents, who can’t get assigned to a singles ward.)
Then of course, we have the standard issue of people who no longer have any association with the Church, and haven’t for years, but are still on the rolls. It’s not that hard to identify these and remove them from the count while keeping their records in case they return, and one could make a very solid argument that not doing so, in order to keep the numbers inflated, is intentionally deceptive.
In my school, we count students as active in a class as long as there is an “academic event”. This can mean coming to class, being in an online threaded discussion, submitting an assignment, or participating in an online activity. At one school, you are active if you just logged into the course and said you were there to do course activities. In our church this can mean attending sac meeting, holding a TR, paying tithing, showing up for a calling once a month, doing home teaching, etcetera. Although this addresses the many ways people can display enough commitment to be called “active’, it makes it really hard to compare across religions. So that is why I think it’s best to keep it simple, while acknowledging the limitations.
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